


in the deep

by Pangaea, TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bottom Armitage Hux, Cloaca, First Time, Fluff and Smut, M/M, MerMay, Non-Human Genitalia, Top Kylo Ren, starcrossed mermen in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:06:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24459430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pangaea/pseuds/Pangaea, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: Blessed with the ability to survive in both freshwater and saltwater, lake-born merman Armitage Hux dreams of a life out in the open ocean.His father has long insisted that the ocean is a place of danger and depravity, but another merman—one sprung from the deepest, darkest depths imaginable—will show Armitage that maybe that isn't such a bad thing.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 18
Kudos: 267





	in the deep

**Author's Note:**

> A Mermay collab between myself and the lovely [Pangaea](https://twitter.com/StarseedComic/status/1266806935610892293). Please go check out their art piece on Twitter!

By the time the sun rose over the tops of the trees fringing the lake, Armitage was already on the move. 

The merman didn’t want to waste any time, or worse, risk his father or one of his cronies catching him as he slipped out of the large freshwater lake he usually called home. Once past the natural rock waterfall separating the larger body of water he slunk into the quickly-flowing stream, allowing the current to assist him in swimming. His fins were delicate, scales beautifully patterned gold and red but ultimately not very hardy; and his hair, though done up in a clasp of catfish bone and cattail fronds, was still long and prone to catching on obstacles. Thus, he took careful pains not to scrape up against any of the rougher, more jagged rocks blanketing the streambed as he zipped through the water. Despite the danger, Armitage found it exhilarating—much better than stagnating in a smelly pond all day like the rest of his so-called family. Flabby, dull-eyed mudsuckers, the lot of them. 

Armitage never felt like he belonged there.

As he broke his head through the surface of the stream, the smell of salt air hit his nose and brought him a smile. Ah. The open ocean. _That’s_ where he belonged. And thankfully, it was also where he was heading. 

Armitage made it to the shoreline in what must be record time, at least for a merman of his size and build. The lacy gills in his throat rippled, body adjusting to the change to more brackish water as the river began to fan out and empty into the ocean. Armitage had been told many times by his father that freshwater fish couldn’t survive for long, scolded for his dreams of living in the ocean—but Armitage wasn’t like them. His mind, his _body_ , was different from theirs. They might suffocate and wither in the ocean, but he didn’t. He wasn’t meant to live their lives of stagnation and safety. 

With one last, powerful flex of his tail, Armitage broke through a curtain of seagrass and disturbed silt and then suddenly he was there—pushed along by the emptying current of the river, finally past the safety of the watershed out into the open ocean proper. It shimmered around him in welcome, vast and blue and singing with life. Crabs and rays, startled at the merman’s sudden appearance, scuffled along the alabaster sands below, while schools of silvery fish scintillated through the columns of sunlight that drifted down through the ocean’s surface, tinging everything it touched with pale gold. 

For a moment Armitage only floated, breathless, drinking in the view around him. His hair, loosened from its braids, the bone clasp that had kept it back lost somewhere along his journey down the river, flared and fluttered about his head like a halo of undersea flame. 

Though he had come this way many times before, it never ceases to amaze him just as it had the very first time. The size and scope of it all. It made Armitage feel impossibly small, albeit not in a terrible way, and he took a long moment to savor how that impressed upon his soul—the simultaneous solitude and sense of belonging. 

He couldn’t remain frozen in place, forever, though. He had an appointment to keep, a reason for being here apart from absorbing the enormity of the sea. So, shaking his head, Armitage gathered his thoughts, and swam his way to the landmark he recalled from his last visit—a large pillar of rock, studded with coral mosaics, naturally formed yet jutting out of the seafloor in such an ostentatious way that it looks like it had been placed there on purpose. Almost like a relic of an ancient merfolk civilization, but impossibly older. 

Armitage drifted to a halt near the peak of the underwater pillar, coming to rest beside a bright protrusion of coral. A crown of sea anemones waved at him, their nubby tentacles a medley of purple and pink and red. He took a closer look at them, fascinated by their bright coloration. It was nearly impossible to find such brilliance in the murkiness of his home within the lake. There, Armitage stuck out like a sore thumb with his vibrant scales and hair, but here he was just as much a part of the ocean’s rich, painted tapestry as everything else was. 

As Armitage watched the anemone, he saw a small fish shyly poke its head out of one. Its orange and white scales stuck out against the fluorescent purple of the anemone’s tentacles, mouth opening and closing softly as it stared at Armitage. He simpered, charmed by the similarity between the fish and his own orange-scaled tail. He was about to lean in closer, maybe strike up a conversation with the little creature like he did the itinerant salmon that journeyed up to his lake to spawn or the shorebirds that occasionally flew inland with their stories, when it suddenly ducked back inside its anemone, frightened. Armitage froze a moment later, a crawl upon his neck, struck with the abrupt awareness that there was someone or _something_ behind him.

But before he could turn around Armitage felt a stroke of claws against his hip, followed by a low, oozy voice in his ear: 

“Find something interesting, pretty one?”

Armitage whirled about, nearly flattening the anemone behind him. A pair of huge, glossy black eyes greeted him, along with rows and rows of long, needle-sharp teeth. 

A merman with any scrap of sanity left would’ve run. But Armitage just rolled his eyes and puffed out an agitated flurry of bubbles in the intruder’s face. 

“I’ve told you to stop sneaking up on me, _Ren_.”

The mouth of teeth smiled, filmy lids blinking almost coquettishly over the deep depths of the other merman’s eyes. His blackish-purple hair fanned about him like an oil slick, an undisturbed void torn out of the calming blue ocean around him. Looking right at him, Armitage was reminded of the very first time he’d ventured out into the open ocean, when he’d been foolish enough to explore the dropoff, to peer down into unknowable depths without knowing what might look back. 

Indeed, Kylo Ren was like no merman Armitage had ever seen before, neither during his trips to the ocean nor back at home in the lake. Which made sense—Ren wasn’t from the open ocean, where the light still managed to permeate through to the bottom of the seafloor. No, Ren hailed from the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean, the abode of nightmarish creatures Armitage had only heard tell of in frightened whispers, who sported unhinged jaws and stretchable bellies and glowing spots and body parts they used as lures to lull unsuspecting prey into their grasp. Horrible, remorseless beings who killed without mercy in the comfort of the impenetrable dark. Armitage, despite his recently awakened taste for danger and adventure, still had no desire to venture that far down into the unknown. 

But Ren was different. Unusual, yes, but undeniably beautiful and magnetic. He had striking features, attractive despite their slight asymmetry. Lips that were full and plump when not stretched over rows of needle-like teeth. Broad shoulders and arms muscled from years of ambush hunting and scarred where prey had fought back, skillful hands tipped in dark claws. Pale, periwinkle skin that bled into the sleek black scales covering the full length of his serpentine tail. 

Said tail now wound around the stone pillar for as far down as Armitage could see, like a dragon perched atop its hoard. There was no way to measure how long it was, and Armitage almost swore it grew every time he saw Ren, though that might just be his imagination. It was easy to get carried away on fantasy and fancy when it came to Ren. There was just something otherwordly about the other merman that triggered that sort of thing deep inside of Armitage’s mind. 

“Sneaking? You really think I’m so nefarious. I was just checking up on a little lost merman who has wandered very far from home.” Ren spoke in a voice that was more like a sibilant hiss of seafoam over rocks in the low tide than anything else. He drifted from side to side in front of Armitage, movements lazy, but eyes flashing with predatory attention. The sort that would usually strike terror up Armitage’s spine and send him fleeing back up the river, and at first it had—but now, the grisly appearance of Ren inspired within Armitage a fascination, a dark curiosity. He was no longer afraid, though sometimes he wondered if he should be. 

Armitage knew that Ren must be dangerous, _had_ to be, considering the abyssal environment he usually roamed—and yet he had never lifted a finger nor fin to harm him. Ren regarded the golden-scaled merman with hunger, yes, but not a hunger for meat, for blood. It was a hunger for something more. A hunger that excited Armitage, rather than frightened him. 

“Don’t play dumb, Ren. You’re the one who invited me out there,” Armitage replied, crossing thin arms over his chest, unfazed by the frightening merman before him. “You told me there was a surprise I had to see. So where is it?”

“Impatient.” Ren drifted closer, sending Armitage’s heart rate up though he tried to look calm. “It’s not a thing, pretty one, it’s a place.”

“A place?”

“It’s not far from here,” Ren assured, “that is, if you’re ready to go further than we did last time.”

Ren had no way of knowing—unless his boasts of supernatural intuition were true—

but for a moment, his words froze the water around Armitage. All at once, he felt as if fate was gifting him a moment of hesitation, one final opportunity to back out and realize this was nothing but a silly, _dangerous_ venture, and that if he went through with it, he might not come out the other side as the same merman that he was. 

But the moment passed, the current brushing ginger-gold curls out of Armitage’s eyes. And then all he saw before him was Ren, floating, his immeasurably long tail twining loosely around Armitage, its tip lost somewhere in the depths beneath them. Ren blinked, filmy third eyelids again flicking up over his glassy black sclera, and smiled all teeth. 

He was a monster of the deep, not to be trusted by anyone but fools and prey—yet, Armitage had never wanted anyone more. 

“I am. I have to see this surprise you’ve been jawing on about.”

Ren’s grin spread across his face even wider, impossibly so, Armitage thinking maybe his skin would crack but it just stretched, like fronds of a broad, waxen sort of seaweed. It showed off more of his fangs, the field of needles that waited beyond his prominent eyeteeth. 

“Follow me.” He took Armitage’s hand, claws slotting together with long delicate fingers. Armitage took a deep breath, squeezing Ren’s hand back as the other merman unwound his tail from the pillar, slick scales susurrating against the stone and coral as he pushed off, serpentine body cutting elegantly through the water. Armitage clung so tightly to Ren’s hand he felt he was pressing against bare bone, tail and fins struggling to keep up with the other merman’s speed. It’s not that he was a weak, debilitated fish—just unaccustomed to the more frenetic pace of ocean life. 

He would adapt, in time, with Ren’s help. He was sure of it. 

The water deepened as they swam further and further, lush and dynamic topography of the shoreline giving way to a smooth, expansive seafloor below. It wasn’t barren of life—Armitage could see large schools of fish, stingrays, and even the occasional spotted shark cross their paths, but they gave Ren a wide berth. Armitage couldn’t blame them. He’d grown used to Ren’s appearance and general aura, but he can imagine it would be frightening to anyone or anything small enough to fit in the merman’s mouth. 

With the dark water of the drop-off looming in the distance, they began to dive deeper in the water. Armitage narrowed his eyes, trying to suss out what “surprise” Ren could possibly have for him all the way out here. Surely they weren’t going to go and try to explore the dropoff—Armitage had already explained to Ren that although he was lucky enough to be able to survive in brackish waters, his body could not handle the intense cold and extreme pressure of the abyssal depths Ren called home. He breathed a sigh of relief when they veered off a direct path towards the deeper water, only to gasp as he suddenly spotted a huge, jagged shadow looming up off the seafloor. 

“What is that?” Armitage asked, nerves and confusion growing in his stomach. Ren didn’t answer, still pulling Armitage along. As they got closer and closer, the shape came into better view, and after a moment of squinting and puzzling, Armitage finally realized what it was. 

A sunken ship. 

Armitage gasped at the sight, a cloud of surprised bubbles bursting from between his lips as he and Ren floated to a halt above their find. The ship sat near the edge of the drop-off, all dark waterlogged wood with a raggedy mast hung with rigging like torn, scraggly hair, a shadow of something momentous and historical, an echo of humanity’s footprint upon the ocean against its indomitable sea-green totality; tottering on the brink but also looking solid enough that it might stay there another hundred years, despite the bend of the currents ceaselessly nudging around it. Armitage had never seen anything like it in his life at the lake, having explored every inch of it out of boredom, or perhaps hope that the silt would finally shift enough to uncover something extraordinary. 

But it never did. All he ever found littering the lakebed were old, cheap paddleboats with plastic that persisted, covered in bloomy algae, even as the wood supporting it rotted, crushed aluminum cans, tangles of old fishing line, sodden and disintegrating cigarette butts, scraps of brightly colored children’s swimsuits, holes nibbled into them by the lesser schools of minnows. Detritus, obscured amongst the muddy bottom, at best. Not treasures, not something like this. 

“Do you like it?” Ren asked beside him.

Armitage turned his head. “It’s beautiful.” Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced back towards the ship. “Can we go inside?”

Ren smirked, showing points of teeth. “That was the plan.” He stopped, genuine concern venturing into his voice. “You’re not afraid, are you?” 

That made Armitage scoff. “Of course not. I came all this way, didn’t I? No one else in that pond would dare swim a single league outside their comfort zone.” 

Ren’s smirk smoothed out into a genuine smile. “You really are a rare breed, pretty one.” He reached to take Armitage’s hand, being mindful of his claws. “Come, then.”

They swam towards a large hole broken in the ship’s side, near where it was partially sunken into the seafloor. Ren went first, bioluminescent spots lighting up all along his flanks as they slunk inside. Even with those, it would’ve been dark inside the ship, too dark for a merman like Armitage to see properly, but fortunately, the deck above had become so rotten and threadbare over the years that it sported large holes, allowing the light from the sun far above to penetrate deep into the vessel’s hull. It cast the entire place in an eerie, but undeniably beautiful light. 

Armitage marveled at the skeleton of the ship around him. He never thought anything made by humans could look so ethereal. He supposed once reclaimed by the water, even the ugliest things they produced—and subsequently lost to nature’s superior fury—could become something special. 

“Come.” Ren lightly tugged Armitage’s hand, urging him forward. “I want to show you the best part.”

Armitage followed Ren through the remains of the cargo hold, keeping pace yet occasionally glancing from side to side. He didn’t want to miss anything, though most of what he saw was fairly mundane—rusted cannons, waterlogged crates, bleached bones poking through swaths of algae and crusts of barnacles. Every once and a while, a blueish crab or flutter of tiny fish fry flickered out from within the debris, but besides that, Armitage wagered he and Ren were the only things still left alive inside the ship.

They swam up through an empty hatch and into the main deck, startling a swarm of eels that had claimed a decaying barrel as their own. There were more bones up here, still dressed in rags of clothing thinned with centuries of exposure, and Armitage would’ve stopped to inspect them had Ren not tugged his hand and continued to guide him along the length of the vessel. He felt a little miffed at Ren’s wordless insistence, but perhaps he could explore the rest of the ship at his leisure once Ren had shown off what the rest of his “surprise” entailed. 

Once they reached the stern of the ship they came across a pair of doors, that looked to Armitage as if they had once been luxuriously decorated. He could still see the metal detailing creeping all over the wood, despite the years of tarnish turning it green and corroded. Whatever lock used to keep it closed had rotten away long ago, and the doors now creaked freely in the soft current flowing through the holes in the old ship. Ren glanced sidelong at Armitage, who nodded, before nudging the doors open. 

The roof of this room was far more damaged than the rest of the ship, allowing for even more sunlight to filter through and glint upon the debris scattered over the floor. Only, there wasn’t just sodden wood and old bones littering the cabin, no. It took Armitage a moment to realize it, but as Ren guided him further into the room, he quickly recognized the heaps of gold coins, raw gems, and jewelry that laid strewn about, reflecting every bit of light that graced their fine, lucent facets. 

“I can’t believe it,” Armitage spoke once he remembered he had a voice, “you actually found sunken treasure. Do you realize how many humans scour the water in vain for riches like these?” Armitage remembered well the fools that occasionally frequented his lake, chasing some rumor of lost gold that he knew to be false. There was nothing in that bog worth searching for, not that humans would ever admit their delusions were for naught. 

“I thought you would appreciate it.” Ren slithered up behind him, clammy palms on his upper arms, urging Armitage to explore the room. “A pretty thing deserves to be surrounded by pretty things.”

Armitage blushed, distracting himself from Ren’s comment and the firm squeeze of his hands with a particularly large necklace he found draped on the arm of a patchy, half-collapsed couch. He fluttered over and carefully picked it up, nervous that the cord holding it together would disintegrate in his hand. When it didn’t, Armitage held it up to his eyes and cocked his head. It was definitely of human design, as merfolk hadn’t the tools nor interest in fashioning jewelry out of precious metals and stones. Armitage knew from the sodden magazines that sometimes blew into the lake’s shallows from abandoned campsites that human women often wore such necklaces around their necks, although this piece appeared more unwieldy, and obviously aged. He liked how it, looked, though. Briefly, he entertained the thought of what it might look like draped around his own neck.

“Do you want to try that on?” Ren whispered over his shoulder, as if reading his mind. 

Armitage glanced back at him, choosing not to call attention to Ren’s near-supernatural intuition. “Should I?”

“I think it would look nice on you.” Ren floated toward the other side of the cabin, where a large, antique mirror sat up against the wall. Armitage raised his eyebrow, surprised he hadn’t noticed it when he first entered. It reflected the sunlight quite well, almost glowing. Armitage would’ve thought it was just a glassy square cut out from the ocean itself, if not for the ornate brass border and the heavy crack that smashed through its upper right corner. 

He faced the mirror as Ren swam up behind him with the necklace held in both claws. He breathed against Armitage’s ear as he leered over his shoulder, wreathing the jewelry around Armitage’s neck. It felt heavy but not unpleasantly so, and the feeling of Ren’s hands brushing up against his throat and chest as he put the necklace into place had Armitage’s heart racing.

“What do you think?” Ren asked once he had finished, still hovering over Armitage’s shoulder. The golden merman glanced at the mirror, taking in his updated appearance. And while it certainly didn’t look _bad_ , it was strange to be wearing jewelry that had been crafted by human hands, no matter how man years ago that had been. 

“I feel a little bit silly,” Armitage admitted.

“Why?”

Armitage gestured at the necklace. “It’s like I’m at a costume party. Freshwater mermen, well...we’re not used to such flashy accessories.” He recalled the simple hair clasp he had lost in the river. Even that was considered fairly ostentatious amongst the other freshwater merfolk. 

Ren shrugged. “You are a treasure. You deserve to be adorned like one.”

Armitage blushed. “Where did you learn flattery like that? I thought you told me you came from deep, deep in the ocean.”

Ren furrowed his brow. “Are you implying there’s nothing to be admired and flattered in the darkest recesses of the ocean?” he said with a slight frown. 

“Of course not! I didn’t mean to insult—” Armitage started to backpedal, worried he’d besmirched the other merman’s home, ruined their little “date” altogether, but quieted when Ren placed a long, clawed finger against his lips. 

“ _Shh_. I don’t take it personally. I will say, however, that there was nothing down there as gorgeous and awe-inspiring as you are. Pretty one,” he added, tongue curling luxuriously at the tip, as if the phrase tasted even better than normal, and needed to be savored. Armitage swallowed, blush deepening, cheeks starting to match the heavy rubies inlaid in the necklace against his chest. 

“Now, let’s not stop there.” The finned tip of Ren’s tail rummaged through the debris scattered all over the cabin floor, eventually coming up with a couple of pearl bracelets and armbands studded with deep blue stones. Armitage chuckled at the find, not sure if Ren was serious, but he nonetheless stuck out his arms and allowed the other merman to slip the jewelry on over his wrists. 

They continued in that same fashion for a while, Ren gathering any pieces of jewelry that caught his eye, bringing them to Armitage for approval before draping them over the merman’s body. Layers of necklaces in all the colors of the rainbow soon lay around Armitage’s neck, belts of tatty leather and untarnished turquoise settled on his hips, rings both slim and understated and large and showy gilding his fingers. His body felt heavy with the jewelry but his heart was light, bursting with affection and pride as he admired himself in the mirror. Finally satisfied, Ren drifted up behind him, settling his clawed hands on Armitage’s shoulders. Their hair floated up in the light current, drifting towards the ceiling, intertwining together in a swirl of black and red. It struck Armitage then, that the only part of him that wasn’t covered in jewelry, was his hair, the one place he had actually bothered to decorate back up at the lake. 

Suddenly self-conscious, Armitage brushed a finger up against his temple, looking Ren’s reflection in the mirror, which was busy securing the last of the necklaces around his throat. 

“Don’t you want to put something in my hair?”

Ren stopped what he was doing and glanced up at Armitage’s untamed, free-floating mane. He blinked, considering, but then shook his head and resumed his work. 

“I like it best like this,” he said with a smile, gently patting Armitage’s shoulder. 

Armitage ran his fingers through a stray lock, disbelieving. “Really?”

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Ren hissed, looking their joint reflection up and down. “You look like the Queen of the Seven Seas.”

Armitage made a disapproving cluck in his throat. 

“You do not like ‘Queen’?”

“I would prefer something more akin to _Emperor_.”

Ren’s black eyes glimmered in intrigue, and he smiled. 

“Very well. Emperor Armitage.” He feigned a bow, tattered fins rippling with the motion. Armitage smirked, turning away from the mirror to face him. 

“And what is an Emperor without a loyal knight to protect him, present to him treasures untold?” Playfully, Armitage held out one hand. A large ring sat on his forefinger, a few inches from Ren’s lips, the attractively flawed surface of the black pearl inlaid there misting with each breath. Desire shivered up Armitage’s spine when the other merman took the proffered hand, lowering his head to place a kiss on the ring. Deep in his loins, something clenched, wound tight like a fishing reel laden with its catch. 

“Your knight? I like the sound of that.” Ren growled affectionately, dark tongue flicking out to lick his fangs. “But there’s another title I would like a lot more. One a touch more intimate than a mere vassal.”

Armitage shuddered, struck with that feeling again, that Ren was hungry, ready to eat him up and—sweet starry skies, he wanted Ren to keep going and _do it_ , eat him all up, leave nothing but the bones of the old Armitage behind. 

“Ren...” he whispered as the other merman continued to lay kisses against his hand, gradually moving up to his wrists, his forearm, the tender crook of his elbow. He hadn’t expected things to heat up in this fashion, but now that it was happening he was powerless, no, _unwilling_ to stop it. Armitage shuddered, fins fluttering with subconscious desire as Ren backed him against the cold surface of the mirror. Ren’s lips migrated up to the slant of his collarbone, just below the gills, parting to lave the long flat of his tongue against the other merman’s pale, lightly freckled skin. Armitage wriggled, which only prompted Ren to take a hold of his hips, pads of his clawed fingers pressing tightly into his golden-scaled skin. 

Armitage had never been with another merman like this, hardly ever thought of it before meeting Ren. He knew, logically, that mating was a key part of life, but he’d never fantasized about it the way he did nowadays, ever since that mysterious soul, belonging to such a sinuously muscled merman, had strayed into his life. 

“R-Ren,” Armitage moaned, so embarrassed by the sound of his bare lust that his already pink cheeks deepened to a rash and ruddy hue, but Ren didn’t shame him, just trilled in amusement. It was a low sound, punctuated by a syncopated series of clicks in the back of his throat and the fluttering flare of the dark gills along his neck, but laced with tangible affection. 

“Yes, pretty one?” he purred, nuzzling under Armitage’s jaw. “What do you want?”

In response, Armitage arched his spine, thrusting his hips up against Ren’s toned belly. 

“I want you. Whatever you have to give me.”

At that, Ren seemed to sigh with his entire body, muscles relaxing into his bones as pure, relieved pleasure melted through him from head to the very tip of his endless tail. 

“I have so much, pretty one. So, so much.”

* * *

Armitage swore his heart was going to explode if Ren continued on like this for any longer. He was, presently, tongue-deep inside of the slit on the front of Armitage’s tail, just between his two fore-fins. 

“R-Ren,” he managed, hands raking through the merman’s hair. It felt strange, different from how Armitage’s own hair felt. Almost like it wasn’t hair at all, but merely fleshly, filigree protrusions from the merman’s skull. 

“Ren!” he repeated, louder, when the tip of Ren’s tongue wrapped around the appendage hidden deep inside of his slit. It didn’t take long to coax it out. Through his half-closed eyelids, Armitage saw the silvery-pink tip of his cock jut out of his slit, following Ren’s retreating mouth. The merman glanced up, meeting Armitage’s eyes, and licked a bead of pale fluid off his lips. 

“You make such lovely music, pretty one,” Ren warbled, “and your taste...”

Armitage cringed. “You’re the lewdest beast in the entire ocean,” he scolded, without much malice. Debauched as it was, to have Ren’s tongue exploring him like this, opening him up, he couldn’t deny how good it felt. 

And it would be wrong to come all this way, this far out into the unknown embrace of the ocean, and not fully explore all the pleasures it had revealed to him. 

He tightened his fist into Ren’s hair, earning an inquisitive click. 

“That’s not all, is it?” Armitage arched his hips, pressing the tip of his wet cock against Ren’s plump lower lip. “You’ve seen mine, so go on. Show me yours.”

Ren’s eyes glimmered despite the low light, something within illuminating them with otherworldly lust. He kissed Armitage’s cock, teasingly, before rising back up to meet him eye to eye. 

“With pleasure, pretty one.” He kissed Armitage again, on the lips, sending the merman’s heart into a flurry as he pushed the taste of his own slit into his mouth. Armitage shuddered. It tasted of seaweed, with the edge of something that made him feel utterly, insatiably _primal._

“You’re f-filthy,” he groaned, even as he greedily watched Ren palm down the front of his tail, long nails coming away shiny with purplish slick as he pressed inside of his slit. He worked his fingers around something firm, letting out a low grunt with each stroke as he coaxed it out. A lump rose in Armitage's throat as the saw the opening start to bulge, growing larger and larger, like a massive, mythological beast rising out of the waves, about to reveal itself to the world above. Yet, somehow even more breathtaking. 

Armitage swallowed down a moan as Ren's cock pushed all the way out of his slit, exposing itself in full. _Starry skies above_ , it was thick. Beyond thick, and so long that the full breadth of Ren’s hand barely covered half of it. Midnight purple gradually faded towards a paler shade at the tip. The shaft was ridged, like the patterns of sand on the seafloor, inviting Armitage to run his palm over it like the undersea current’s caress. Much like his body, bioluminescent spots ran along the full length of the cock, from the head to the base, where it sprouted from slick folds right where human flesh met the smooth, dark glide of scale. They gave off a faint, eerie glow that reflected onto Armitage’s scales, making the pristine gold and red look a little more strange, a little more like Ren. Armitage recalled the tales of the merfolk that lived in the deepest parts of the ocean, that place where Ren claimed to have come from, who used glowing parts of their bodies as lures; enticing their prey with hypnotic dances of light, drawing out their deaths as if the dread seasoned the meat, before striking and sinking back into the dark. Armitage wondered if that was the reality of the situation, and he was just keeping himself blind to it. Perhaps he was only Ren’s prey, rather than his friend, his partner. Perhaps the words of praise—the “queen,” the “emperor,” were just as much an insidious lure as his glowing cock. 

And yet, Armitage didn’t quite feel like prey. Ren may have him pinned against the antique mirror, coils suffocating like tendrils of oil all around them, but it all feels mutual as the exchange of salt between the sea and coastal cliffs. Desired and reciprocal. Armitage knows deep in his blood that Ren won’t rip him apart, choke chunks of tender flesh and golden scale down his gullet.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t _consume_ him. 

As the head of Ren’s cock bumped against Armitage’s slit he tried to relax, welcome it even as his heart leaped in his chest. Ren’s hand found the frame of the mirror as he worked his way inside, nails scratching at the remaining lacquer. 

“You’re _thick_ ,” Armitage eked out, end of his tail wrapping around the beginning of Ren’s, seeking purchase, a way to ground himself against this brand-new feeling. Ren halted, perhaps out of worry that he was hurting Armitage, but when Armitage whined and bucked his hips a moment later, he chuckled and kissed him, before pushing in another tantalizing inch. 

“It’s all for you. Everything I have,” Ren growled against his cheek, grinding Armitage against the surface of the mirror as he delved in deeper, deeper. “My pretty one, my Queen, my _Emperor_.”

Armitage clung on for dear life when Ren finally started up a proper pace, not punishingly quick but not slow, either, much more like the slow but violent roil of stormy waters than the predictable, mechanical thrum of humans as they used their vessels to fruitlessly penetrate the ocean’s mysteries. They, as well as all of the dull-minded merfolk who lived stuck in the mud back at Armitage’s lake, would never truly comprehend an enigma like Ren, could never appreciate his terrific beauty. It was only for Armitage to behold, because he was no longer ignorant enough to be afraid. 

“ _Deeper_ ,” he begged, tossing his head back against the mirror, hair aflutter in a red cloud above him, “deeper, Kylo, please!”

And Ren complied, any words drowned in a possessive snarl as his hips slammed forward, seeming to shake the entirety of the cabin with a single thrust. Armitage was sure he felt the mirror shudder and splinter as the coils of Ren’s tail wrapped around it, anchoring himself so that he could fuck into Armitage with the same ferocity and passion that was promised. Armitage grabbed on to his shoulders, the tip of his tail wrapping around Ren’s when he felt them brush up against each other, a bond of golden-red and benthic purple, secure as a mooring rope, keeping them forever tethered to one another. _Forever,_ oh—even amidst a rotten ship, humanity’s sunken folly built by hands that probably thought it too would last the ages, the sheer, vertiginous depth of passion wracking his body and mind had Armitage believing in a thing like forever. 

He whined blearily as Ren’s free hand found his cock, jutting up from his overfilled slit, and began to stroke it in time with his thrusts. He dug his nails into Ren’s shoulders, scratching at the speckled skin as he felt his pleasure start to crest, rising up precariously inside him, like a wave rolling to shore. He clung to Ren, his hips juddering to meet the force of his thrusts, chasing his mounting high until it toppled, washed over him, left him streaked with seafoam in the breathless shallows. 

“ _Oh_ , pretty one,” Ren’s voice seeped through the waves crashing in Armitage’s ears, “you feel like paradise.”

That was the last coherent thing Armitage heard before his orgasm struck, sending him sinking into the depths of pleasure as Ren followed, spilling a torrent of warm fluid deep inside of his slit and filling it to the brim. 

In the aftermath, they were both unhurried as the currents drifting through the holes in the ship. Armitage stroked Ren’s cheek, letting him rest their foreheads together as they slowly caught their breaths. There was something past the most basic, merely biological desires of mating that wriggled between them, now. Strangely, Armitage felt safer than he ever had before, wrapped up in Ren’s coils against a mirror broken by the force of their fucking, so far from home that it had shrunk to little more than a memory in his mind. He was teetering on the edge of the drop-off and for once, Armitage didn’t fear that he would fall. In a way, he already had. 

He wondered, freely, if Ren ever thought the same. If he’d ever known Armitage’s fear, ever viewed the light with the same trepidation that he had the dark. He felt like Ren did. They kissed, long and languid, and once they parted Armitage looked deep into the merman’s black eyes and spotted a warm vulnerability starting to resurface. Then, he knew it for certain. 

Once they’d cleaned off and disentangled from one another, Ren helped Armitage shed the jewelry from his aching body. They placed it back inside one of the least broken chests before leaving, moving away from the drop-off and back towards shore, back towards land. 

Back towards the lake. 

But as Armitage kissed Ren’s fanged mouth goodbye right at the top of the sea pillar, he left a certain promise to come again lingering sweetly in the water between them. And when he finally did return to the lake, curling up for the night in a bed of algae amidst the muddy shallows, he caressed the beautifully imperfect sheen of the black pearl in his new ring, and went to sleep lulled by the memory of one thing.

The lingering, indefinable taste of Ren’s lips. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been stuck in writer's block for a while now. Hopefully, I'm coming out of it now. Thank you all for your patience. 
> 
> Hit me up on [Tumblr](http://thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heir_of_breath7/).


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